In video games, senior citizens are largely stereotyped NPCs. Rare is the kind of game like Metal Gear Solid 4, with a truly aged, playable protagonist. Can games create more roles for the elderly? Should they?

Matthew Kaplan of GameCritics thinks games have a lot of growing up to do, especially as the median age of gamers inevitably gets older. His essay argues that games, which often involve superhuman or at least athletic protagonists capable of amazing feats, rarely deal with the issues of aging and if so, typically as a limitation only.

But placing a game in the context of someone's advanced age would deepen both its story, its characters, and the relationships players form with them, Kaplan argues. He goes so far as offering Prototype as a theoretical example, and it wasn't at all as silly as it sounded at first.

This isn't an issue of inclusion to the degree that ethnic diversity is; the elderly, right now, don't game in huge numbers, of course. But there is a difference between growing old and evolving, and for games, including the elderly more would